Wednesday, March 19, 2014

I can't find stuff in my Steam library any more.

I have almost 300 games in my Steam library an I appear to have crossed a threshold where it is now genuinely difficult to find a particular game among the multitude. I can search for a game if I know part of the title but sadly even that simple hurdle often defeats my middle aged brain. "What is the name of that strategy game I picked up on sale last week ...grrrgh". The built in filters: Games, Software, Recent, Installed and Favourites are very little help. (Recent means recently played and not recently acquired). I have started using the Favourites label to tag games I am particularly
keen to find later but if I had no interest in playing a game at all I
probably wouldn't add it to Steam in the first place.

I do try to rein in my acquisitive tendencies when buying new games but holiday sales and gaming bundles have thwarted my efforts. I do have a personal rule not to buy a game unless there is a real chance I will play it in the near future. Holiday sales present many games I would like to play all at the same time which inevitably builds up backlog. Bundles on the other hand may have one or two titles which I genuinely want but come with a half dozen unknowns that may or may not be interesting. There have been bundles where every title turned out to be a stellar gaming experience and there have been bundles where nothing has live up to its hype. Regardless they all add to the clutter in my Steam library.

The grid view is my current last hope of in desperation because sometimes my eyes will pick out the picture of a game even if I cannot recall the title but I wish there were better search tools available for the library. Being able to sort by store classification (Shooter / Action etc) would be a big help. Not only would that help down narrow the search for a particular game it would also be a great help for those times when I feel like playing a shooter / an rpg / an rts or some other genre and would like to see what games of that type I have. Being able to sort by date acquired would also be useful. That way I could finally find all those games I bought during the Christmas sale.

Hi @Tobold. That may be a possibility but I don't think it is possible to sort games in your library by tags. I couldn't find a way to sort by the "genre" tags that Steam apples itself for instance. I will look into it when I get home.